Q: We’re convinced. We’ve decided it’s best to wait to give our children smartphones. The problem is I have a sixth-grader and everyone else in her class has a phone. She doesn’t understand why she can’t have one. I’ve explained the social, emotional and physical problems it has been proven to cause, but “facts and evidence” aren’t persuasive to a 12-year-old when all of her friends are doing it. What can I do to make it better for her?
I commend your decision and I sympathize with your plight. It’s hard to break the bonds of parental peer pressure. It’s harder still to do something for the long-term benefit of your children that causes them short-term anguish. No one wants to see them on the outside looking in.
But this is what being a parent is all about. You can’t give in to their every want.
My first suggestion is to be a role model. If you’re going to tell your children that they can’t have a phone because it’s bad for them, then hypocrisy will only increase their sense of your injustice. I always raised an eyebrow when my pack-a-day parents would tell me not to smoke. The power of their words was obliterated by the hypocrisy of their actions. So use your own phone judiciously.
Your children will think your decision unfairly restricts their freedom. It’s important, then, to allow freedom and fun to reign elsewhere. I’m not suggesting you “buy off” their dissatisfaction with trips or toys, but I am suggesting that you allow them every opportunity to have the kind of adolescence that they’ll look back on one day with fondness. Letting them join extra clubs or indulging them in a hobby they like might be ways to keep them focused on privileges they do have rather than fixating on one they don’t.
Kids love to feel special. So instead of framing the decision as something you’re depriving them of, explain that it’s something that will make them unique among their peers.
They’ll be looking enviously at their friends’ phones. They won’t see the downside. So when you see people misusing their devices − scrolling when they should be listening, for example − subtly point it out. Share with them articles you find about the dangers. You want to make them aware of the negatives, not just pine for the positives.
Be nurturing. Pull them next to you and tell them that you aren’t giving them a phone for the same reason you aren’t letting them drive yet: they simply aren’t ready. And it would be on your conscience if you gave them something that you know would make them unhappy and unsafe.
It’s good that you recognize that this is not one of those “Because I said so” instances. You will have to make the love behind it real because your decision will have enormous repercussions for your children.
In a recent 25-year study, psychologist Jean M. Twenge discovered that how kids spend their free time now is radically different than how their parents did and it’s mostly due to smartphones. Adolescents today are more apt to stay at home and engage in relationships over social media. From 2000 to 2015, the number of teenagers who hung out with their friends every day dropped 40%. Unsurprisingly, teens today are more likely to feel alone and unhappy.
This poses a challenge for you. One reason not to give your children phones is to avoid the unhappiness and isolation that flows from today’s online-only lifestyle. But it begs the question: if you want them to engage in face-to-face relationships, who’s left out there to engage with? Kids don’t talk on the telephone anymore. They text or video chat. How do you permit them to still have ordinary communication with their friends?
While you could let them access communication apps through your phone or a tablet of their own, another possible idea is to employ a “house” smartphone which could be used by the whole family. This would enable your children to have conversations with friends which could, if there are concerns, be monitored. It could stay in the living room and time spent on it could be restricted. All the apps could be tracked and the worst could be deleted. You might consider this a contemporary version of the old landlines our families had to share when we were younger.
Remind yourself that the day you hand over that phone, your children will lay down their innocence.
Remind yourself that what you’re giving them isn’t really a phone at all. It’s a secret, private world of their own, far different and more dangerous than the one we grew up in.
